Fall 2022
Virtual Realities Focus Cluster
Spring 2022
ISS 125L/VMS 125L: Foundations of Game Design Time: MW 5:15-6:30 PM Location: Perkins Link Instructor: Marshall Miller Description: Games have a growing presence in today’s world but where do they come from? How do game designers create meaningful play experiences and what are their responsibilities as creators? The proposed course will focus on games as designed experiences. Students will explore a diverse range of contemporary games while learning the theoretical approaches to game design, thus enabling them to decompose games into the elements, interactions, and themes that produce meaningful systems of play. Students will participate in frequent game design activities, learning how to adapt and modify game systems to alter play outcomes and enhance player experiences. Students will also complete team-based game design projects (including: generation of game ideas, navigation of design constraints, prototyping and playtesting, and refinement) to familiarize them with the iterative process of game design and to provide opportunities for reflection and growth across multiple game design cycles. While the scope of the proposed course is limited to the analysis and design of analogue games, it will introduce theoretical frameworks, concepts, and approaches that are fully transferable and equally fundamental to digital game design. Student assessment will focus heavily on participation and documentation of students’ individual and collaborative design processes to evidence their engagement with and application of core course content. Documentation will take the form of team design diaries, describing the development of their game design projects, and personal design notebooks, in which students record their game play experiences and game design ideas throughout the semester. Ultimately, the proposed course will prepare students to critically consume game media and design meaningful games and interactive experiences, as well as serve as a point-of-entry to game studies and design.
CMAC270S/ISS 270S/VMS 270S CONSTRUCTING IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL WORLDS Tues 8:30-11am Perkins Link Classroom 6 Theory, practice, and creation of 3D virtual worlds. Hands-on design and development of online collaborative simulation environments. Introduction to graphics workflow for creating virtual world media assets. Critical exploration of state-of-the-art virtual world technologies; 3D graphics, chat, voice, video, and mixed reality systems. Topics include: history/culture of virtual worlds, identity and avatars; behavioral norms; self-organizing cultures; user-generated content, virtual world economies; architectural scalability.
See also workshops at OIT
Fall 2021
Virtual Realities Focus Cluster
Spring 2021
ARTSVIS 209-01 LEC (3401)/VMS 351-01 LEC (3518)/ISS 209-01 LEC (3519): 3D MODELING AND ANIMATION Location: Online Basic concepts of 3D modeling and animation; fundamentals of computer geometry; knowledge of basic tools of 3D software (Maya); introduction to modeling, animation, texturing, lighting, and rendering; combination of these techniques in a final project. Recommended prerequisite: Visual and Media Studies 206 or 396.
ISS 125L/VMS 125L: Foundations of Game Design Time: MW 4:40-5:55 PM Location: Online Instructor: Marshall Miller Description: Games have a growing presence in today’s world but where do they come from? How do game designers create meaningful play experiences and what are their responsibilities as creators? The proposed course will focus on games as designed experiences. Students will explore a diverse range of contemporary games while learning the theoretical approaches to game design, thus enabling them to decompose games into the elements, interactions, and themes that produce meaningful systems of play. Students will participate in frequent game design activities, learning how to adapt and modify game systems to alter play outcomes and enhance player experiences. Students will also complete team-based game design projects (including: generation of game ideas, navigation of design constraints, prototyping and playtesting, and refinement) to familiarize them with the iterative process of game design and to provide opportunities for reflection and growth across multiple game design cycles. While the scope of the proposed course is limited to the analysis and design of analogue games, it will introduce theoretical frameworks, concepts, and approaches that are fully transferable and equally fundamental to digital game design. Student assessment will focus heavily on participation and documentation of students’ individual and collaborative design processes to evidence their engagement with and application of core course content. Documentation will take the form of team design diaries, describing the development of their game design projects, and personal design notebooks, in which students record their game play experiences and game design ideas throughout the semester. Ultimately, the proposed course will prepare students to critically consume game media and design meaningful games and interactive experiences, as well as serve as a point-of-entry to game studies and design.
Fall 2020
AMES 240S/ LIT 440S/ POLSCI 440S/ ICS 440S/ CULANTH 440S/ VMS 255S: Games and Culture GRAD: ISS 770S/CMAC 770S Time: TTh 10:05 – 11:20 AM Location: Online Instructors: Leo Ching, Shai Ginsburg Description: In this class, we will take games seriously. We will examine games from a broad perspective: historical, sociological, political, military, literary and more in an attempt to chart the varied uses (and abuses) of games today. Two questions will be guiding us in the course of the semester. One, what can we learn from games and the pleasure they give us about our cultures and societies? And two, can we harness games and pleasure to enhance pedagogy, broadly defined? We will pay particular attention to game design and explore the ways such design shapes not only our experience of the game, but also of the world. We will ask how the understanding of game design enhances our understanding of cultural and political dynamics. We will also ask whether such design could be introduced to the college classroom to produce better understanding of culture and society. The course is made up of both playing games of various kinds and reading scholarship about games. It has four major components: 1. Short analogue games (in class). 2. Long analogue games (assignment). 3. Short, medium, and long-length digital games (assignment). 3. Readings and discussions.
Spring 2020
ISS 125L/VMS 125L: Foundations of Game Design Time: MW 4:40-5:55 PM Location: Game Lab (Link Classroom 6) Instructor: Marshall Miller Description: Games have a growing presence in today’s world but where do they come from? How do game designers create meaningful play experiences and what are their responsibilities as creators? The proposed course will focus on games as designed experiences. Students will explore a diverse range of contemporary games while learning the theoretical approaches to game design, thus enabling them to decompose games into the elements, interactions, and themes that produce meaningful systems of play. Students will participate in frequent game design activities, learning how to adapt and modify game systems to alter play outcomes and enhance player experiences. Students will also complete team-based game design projects (including: generation of game ideas, navigation of design constraints, prototyping and playtesting, and refinement) to familiarize them with the iterative process of game design and to provide opportunities for reflection and growth across multiple game design cycles. While the scope of the proposed course is limited to the analysis and design of analogue games, it will introduce theoretical frameworks, concepts, and approaches that are fully transferable and equally fundamental to digital game design. Student assessment will focus heavily on participation and documentation of students’ individual and collaborative design processes to evidence their engagement with and application of core course content. Documentation will take the form of team design diaries, describing the development of their game design projects, and personal design notebooks, in which students record their game play experiences and game design ideas throughout the semester. Ultimately, the proposed course will prepare students to critically consume game media and design meaningful games and interactive experiences, as well as serve as a point-of-entry to game studies and design.
AMES 240S/ LIT 440S/ POLSCI 440S/ ICS 440S/ CULANTH 440S/ VMS 255S: Games and Culture GRAD: ISS 770S/CMAC 770S Time: TTh 10:05 – 11:20 AM Location: Game Lab (Link Classroom 6) Instructors: Leo Ching, Shai Ginsburg Description: In this class, we will take games seriously. We will examine games from a broad perspective: historical, sociological, political, military, literary and more in an attempt to chart the varied uses (and abuses) of games today. Two questions will be guiding us in the course of the semester. One, what can we learn from games and the pleasure they give us about our cultures and societies? And two, can we harness games and pleasure to enhance pedagogy, broadly defined? We will pay particular attention to game design and explore the ways such design shapes not only our experience of the game, but also of the world. We will ask how the understanding of game design enhances our understanding of cultural and political dynamics. We will also ask whether such design could be introduced to the college classroom to produce better understanding of culture and society. The course is made up of both playing games of various kinds and reading scholarship about games. It has four major components: 1. Short analogue games (in class). 2. Long analogue games (assignment). 3. Short, medium, and long-length digital games (assignment). 3. Readings and discussions.
ISS 270S/ ISS 770S/ CMAC 770S: Immersive Virtual Worlds Time: W 10:05 AM - 12:35 PM Location: Game Lab (Link Classroom 6) Instructor: Augustus Wendel Description: Theory, practice, and creation of 3D virtual worlds. Hands-on design and development of online collaborative simulation environments. Introduction to graphics workflow for creating virtual world media assets. Critical exploration of state-of-the-art virtual world technologies; 3D graphics, chat, voice, video, and mixed reality systems. Topics include: history/culture of virtual worlds, identity and avatars; behavioral norms; self-organizing cultures; user-generated content, virtual world economies; architectural scalability
ISS 315/VMS 304/ARTHIST 315: Mapping History with GIS GRAD: CMAC 715/ISS 7015 Time: M 10:05AM - 12:35PM Location: Game Lab (Link Classroom 6) Instructor: Edward Triplett Description: Beginner/intermediate Geographic Information System (GIS) course designed to help students learn how to investigate history spatially. Emphasizes perspectives, procedures, and tools that are relevant to applications of GIS in Art History and Humanistic disciplines. Designed as a hybrid lecture/lab format in which direct instruction is supplemented by hands on learning labs using ArcGIS software and real-world spatial data. The main skills students will gain are: integration of spatial and tabular data, geoprocessing, data visualization, creating features, editing features, vector and raster integration, spatial analysis, georeferencing
ARTHIST 225/MEDREN 215: Gothic Cathedrals Time: TTH 3:05PM - 4:20PM Location: Game Lab (Link Classroom 6) Instructor: Edward Triplett Description: Great cathedrals of Europe in England, Germany, and Italy, with a special focus on France, from roughly 1140 to 1270, and their construction, financing, and role in the fabric of medieval city life. The urban context of each city, the history of the site and its relics, and the artistic and technological developments that made the construction of these complex and large-scale structures possible. A consideration of Romanesque precedents and the origins of the various structural elements of Gothic architecture.
